


can this savior be for real

by bewareoftrips



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 2x15, M/M, Mentions of Stalking, chicles, forgive me i truly have no idea what this is, idk charles just wants love i guess, mentions of drug use, mid20sdale, parentdale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 08:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21425125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewareoftrips/pseuds/bewareoftrips
Summary: Head down. Blend in. Don’t draw attention to yourself.No one had to tell Charles Smith that. He’d gone most of his life not being noticed.
Relationships: Alice Cooper/Hal Cooper, Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz, Chic Cooper | Charles Smith/Charles Smith, Chic/Original Charles Smith (Riverdale), Penelope Blossom/Hal Cooper
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	can this savior be for real

**Author's Note:**

> takes place during the will reading in 2x15
> 
> Dwayne is the shady guy Chic killed oops

Head down. Blend in. Don’t draw attention to yourself.

No one had to tell Charles Smith that. He’d gone most of his life not being noticed. 

He follows Chic’s directions and ends up outside a dilapidated gothic nightmare. The sign on the gates read Thornhill but Chic assures him if he follows the single road he’ll find a smaller gothic nightmare called Thistle House. 

There are still plenty of seats in the pallor when he arrives - including a velvet couch that seems strange for the occasion - but he shuffles his feet in the foyer and feigns interest in the decor as guests arrive in twos and threes. Taking a seat at the will reading of someone who may or may not have been your second cousin once removed feels far too intimate. 

The room fills slowly and every time a non-redhead arrives he lets out a sigh of relief. The last thing he needs is to stick out like a sore thumb. Every time he spots a fellow blonde, his heart skips a beat until he sees their face. They’d be here today. Maybe all of them.

“How are you on cash?” Chic had sang to him over the phone the night before. He’d almost cried when he heard his voice. It’d been over two weeks since he last checked in and he knew if he admit he was worried he’d get nothing more than an excuse. “I think our money problems may be over.”

Before he could beg Chic not to steal something else from his bio parents - God knew the guilt he felt every time he walked past the pawn shop and saw Hal’s watch in the display case, damn his Catholic upbringing - he told him about Polly’s homecoming, about the round-cheeked twins she pushed in a double carriage, about the will reading. About how the Blossom widow hinted there would be a nice payout for anyone “purely Blossom enough” to make the cut.

“That’s you, baby.” He didn’t need to see Chic’s face to know his lips were curling into an impish grin. “Our problems will be over.”

“Then maybe we can leave Centerville. We can pay off Dwayne.” 

Chic paused. “Dwayne is taken care of.”

“You haven’t seen him, have you?” Charles fingered the two month chip in his pocket. “We said no more -”

“He’s taken care of, okay?” Chic snapped. “He came by and - and lets just say Alice and I sorted things out. We’re good.”

“She paid off our debt?” He was skeptical. “The debt to our dealer?” 

“Don’t worry about it, baby.” Chic’s voice dropped to a coo. “Just show up to that will reading tomorrow and get what’s yours. What you’re owed. Isn’t that why we’re doing all of this?”

Chic hung up and Charles went to search for a respectable outfit. Chic normally got his way.

He tears his eyes off a jeweled statue when the door of Thistle House opens again. His eyes almost meet the bright green’s of a young girl pushing an empty baby carriage, but he turns his head before she fixates on him and takes coverage behind a large house plant. 

Polly.

Betty and Hal walk in after her, each with an infant in their arms. He runs his fingers over the chip in his pocket as he tries to slow his beating heart. It’s been a long time since he saw them all together. Two and a half years in fact. A day he’d followed half a block behind as the three of them and Alice walked from the Riverdale Register to the Bijou and caught a Saturday matinee. He still had pictures from that day in the box under his bed. Pictures from that day and many others. Alice and Hal in their office. Betty and Polly at the mall. Either girl with friends at Pops or walking to school. Alice at PTA meetings. Hal meeting advertisers for lunch. The ones he thumbed through when Chic was passed out or sleeping. 

His collection was impressive, but he hadn’t gotten anything new in some time. Not since the day Alice hissed, “No solicitors!” as she pointed to her neighborhood watch sign and slammed the door in his face. 

On bad days, he liked to imagine himself with them at he looked through. Alice linking arms with him as they strolled down Main Street. Him playfully batting Betty’s ponytail or mussing up Polly’s headband. Hal clapping him on the shoulder as he made them all laugh.

How he hated them.

He couldn’t help but resent the people that gave him up. The sister’s who’d stolen his childhood. The house with the red door on Elm Street that should have been his to call home.

“Pollykins!” A voice echoes through the house and pulls him back to the present. A redheaded girl ambushes the Coopers at the door. She plants a kiss on Polly’s cheek - just enough to leave a red imprint - and snatches the baby from Betty’s arms before she can stop her. Another woman - the Blossom widow, he thinks - approaches Hal with the coolness of two people with a messy history and stares him dead in the eye until he hands over the baby. 

“You look out of place.”

Charles jumps and pulls his face away from the branches of the potted plant. “What’s that mean?”

She rolls her eyes but smiles. “Relax. You just don’t look like you belong here either.” 

He swallows and tries to smile. “I don’t look Blossom enough for you?”

“No.” Her eyebrow raises. “Are you a Blossom?”

He extends a hand and thanks someone - Alice he supposes - that his name is so common. “Smith.”

She shrugs and shakes. “Toni. Not a Blossom either.” She eyes the young redhead gushing over the baby in her arms, trying to convince her mother to let her hold the other one too. “A Blossom friend, you can say.”

He knows that look of longing in her eyes. She likes the mean ones too. “Just a friend?” 

Toni tilts her head but doesn’t answer. “You’re not a Blossom you said? Are you from Betty’s side of the family?”

“No!” The word comes out too quickly and Toni’s mouth falls open. “I’m just -”

“Toni!” He’s saved by the redhead elbowing him aside with a squirming child. “You must meet Polly.” She holds up the child in her arms, his little feet kicking at her. “And Jason Junior and his sister of course.”

“It’s Dagwood, Cheryl.” Polly reaches for her son, but the redhead steps away, making his sister chase her. “And it’s Juniper, not ‘his sister.’” 

“Over my dead body, Polly. Those aren’t names, those are things in my mother’s conservatory.”

Toni hardly gives him a second look as she follows the girls back to the Coopers. Betty has Juniper now and the redhead - Cheryl, Polly had called her - talks until she ends up in Toni’s arms. 

Oh yeah. Toni definitely likes the mean ones.

He spots Hal and the Blossom widow towards the front of the room as she waves for him to sit on the velvet couch. He reaches out to put a hand on her arm and she squats his touch away so quick she almost gives him whiplash.

Oh Hal. What were you up to? He makes a note to ask Chic what he knows about the Blossoms next time he calls.

A man in front - a lawyer he thinks - calls the room together and Hal looks over his shoulder, half for his daughters and grandkids and half to see if anyone noticed his embarrassment. Before Charles can look away, he spots him. Hal’s eyes narrow and head cocks slightly to the side.

Charles sprints towards the open door as another gaggle of redheads come in. Surely Hal has no idea, couldn’t know, shouldn’t know, but he isn’t ready to take that chance. His own sister had brushed passed him. His father looked him dead in the eyes. Chic can get the info out of the girls later, he needs to leave.

He buries his hands in his pockets and doesn’t look up until he’s in the designated parking area some two hundred feet from the house. He sees her and takes two steps out of the way before her head turns.

“Alice, I am not about to let you storm in and -”

“You are my attorney, Sierra, and you will stand by me! I will not sign a single paper until we see what Hal -”

The woman - Sierra - reaches out to put a hand on Alice’s shoulder and gets squatted away as well. Sierra forces a grin. “Alice. Please. I understand you’re hurt, but this isn’t the answer. We should meet with Hal’s lawyer in a neutral place, like my office. Not ambush him in the home of a woman he’s allegedly -”

“Allegedly? Well, if Penelope,” Alice spits the word out like venom, “thinks it’s fit to -”

“Sir!” Sierra calls out to him where he’s awkwardly pretending to find his keys in his pocket. “Excuse me, sir. What is going on in there today? Are the Blossoms hosting a party?”

Charles hunches his shoulders and keeps his head down. “A will reading.”

“Alice!” Sierra turns on her. “This is Clifford’s will reading? We have no business -”

“I married a Blossom, I have every right to be here!” Alice spins on her heel, but turns her head back around. “Why are you leaving? Ol’ Cliff not leave you anything?”

His eyes dart up and meet his mother’s for only the second time he can recall. “I’m not family.”

Alice lets out something between a scoff and a laugh. “Well lucky you. Come on, Sierra.”

He watches them, one chasing the other, as they hike up the walkway in heels. He touches the chip in his pocket one last time and wonders if Dwayne is going to answer his phone if he calls. 


End file.
